Chuck Norris, sorry to bother you but you seem like a wealth of knowledge in this game. Can the rat Druid succeed at end game content in this game? I am playing the Trap Rat build as my first character on Median XL and it's been exciting, challenging and doable so far. Only level 81 at the moment. I hope to become stronger finding sets or sacred uniques.

I tend to question what I'm doing far too often. If you had any tips you could share with me I'd greatly appreciate it. I am trying to read the guides too. Thank you. I just wish I could borrow your brain when I play this game. LOL

he asked me if i agree for him to make vids for each miniguide that i will then add to the compilation , so since my time for gaming does not allow me to focus on that , his efforts are welcomed . we had this planned since about half a year ago , but it was never the right time until now

DreamTeam wrote:Chuck Norris, sorry to bother you but you seem like a wealth of knowledge in this game. Can the rat Druid succeed at end game content in this game? I am playing the Trap Rat build as my first character on Median XL and it's been exciting, challenging and doable so far. Only level 81 at the moment. I hope to become stronger finding sets or sacred uniques.

I tend to question what I'm doing far too often. If you had any tips you could share with me I'd greatly appreciate it. I am trying to read the guides too. Thank you. I just wish I could borrow your brain when I play this game. LOL

the Traprat can do great in most ubers with just crafts and runewords . His only weak point is fighting vs physical imunes , so then you have to rely on egg traps and elemental procs , which are not too many available for him .

other than that , he is cheap and easy to play and can easy farm in most of the important arreas

AnubisQQ wrote:Where tho, SB's guide is way outdated. I know, you told me that you did fine with it, but many things have changed and I don't have the knowledge to adapt to it.

SB's guide is old, but near everything is the same besides some of the Mystic Orbing (i.e. removal of pierce MO's and such) and some of the maps of the ubers. You can build your character in nearly the exact same way.

Here, in Chuck's guide, there are different ways to play normal characters or builds that explore the use of oskills combined with the tree. I'm not gonna go into much detail cause this is chuck's post and would like to keep his stuff oriented around his builds.

Chuck and LHWhat do you think of this build idea for a Necro hybrid totem / xbow (just the basic idea). Concept:

* The 1.2 patch made it possible to make totems survive without investing in Nightwalker.* Instead use Rathma's Chosen. This will require many fewer skill points.

The basic idea is to use the totems for cover (and offence), since the necro himself is very safe "under" the totems after using Bend the Shadows. So build as a xbow necro but divert points to:

* 1 point in each totem (or just Death's Fury, see below).* Max Rathma's Chosen as the level 90 skill (instead of Death Ward in the xbow necro or Jinn in totem).* 1 Point in each skill down to Bend the Shadows. maybe all the way to Talon's Hold since xbow uses that and Bane.* 1 point in the Skeletal Flayers for Bend the Shadow. Possibly 1 more for Rampagor for a bigger target.

Some of this largely as LH's totem necro guide but using Rathma's Chosen and the totems would be Death's Fury (and maybe Howling).

It's also possible to build this with a totem bias. Just carry a crossbow to use Death Shards. An honourific maybe so it can have MOs and perhaps no need for Fragmentation Shot, just use Sacrifices, Death Shards and Boneyard/Funeral Pyre (except Death Shards is based on weapon damage?). There are probably many variants possible giving different bias to the various options including things like Dragonfire Oil.

The rest is as per Chuck's xbow necro #38 The Arsonist. Shaving points out of somewhere to get the few points needed for the totems as above.

It is possible to further minimise the totem points by only having 1 point in Death's Fury totem and creating 5 of those to hide under. When the xbow side buffs fire damage this will also buff the totem. Howling totem may be nice for crushing blow though. It may depend how many skill points can be spared from xbow side.

is this workable do you think? You gentlemen know the game much better than me and would know best how to optimise the options and itemise the character at each stage. If you think it would work then please feel free to expand it into a full build.

Maybe you could skip putting points into that passive fire damage skill and instead put them into DFT. DFT gives 6 k damage in endgame. Without any invested points- not even close as much.

However the lack of Death Ward will probably make the gamer harder. Plus you get 50% more damage thanks to bend the shadows. So yeah you‘ll have a real glasscannon if you play with RC instead of DeathWard. Best thing to do is try it out.